


Finding Home

by Tarlan



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-13 04:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9106429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: A set of loosely connected ficlets for Fandom Stocking 2016.





	1. Unreal, Surreal, Real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geeky_ramblings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geeky_ramblings/gifts), [Fionhen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionhen/gifts), [gaialux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time was back at the prison.

The first time was back at the prison, long after most everyone had turned in for the night. Even though it hadn't been asked for or even necessary, Daryl had been standing watch in the guard tower, and when Rick arrived a few hours later he'd still felt too wired to leave his self-appointed task. It had been a strange day. Too quiet, with only arguments over where they should plant crops to help them make it through the next winter. Rick was still hanging back, allowing everyone else to make the decisions. He'd abdicated responsibility after Lori's death almost broke him, but he was healing slowly. Daryl could see the madness and grief receding as Rick focused on Little Asskicker, and on the land and the pigs they'd rounded up from the woods before the zombies got them.

"You know they're calling this 'nookie tower'," Daryl stated, hoping for and gaining a rare smile from Rick.

God knew they'd had little to smile about these past years, and even less since that last night on Herschel's farm. He'd missed Rick's smile. He'd missed the happy, warm, southern drawl with just the occasional hint of his English mother as they tried to find a small measure of humanity in the bleakness of survival. He'd missed the jokes about a long-gone past, of broken laws that no longer held meaning for either of them, no longer setting them on opposite sides of the law. Rick once talked of home as a safe place but Daryl had never truly known one, and over the years that word had ceased to be a place at all - real or imaginary.

"Nookie tower. That so," Rick replied, still smiling as they both recalled teasing Glenn and Maggie. "Guess that explains the blankets and pillows."

If anyone ever asked, Daryl doubted he could describe what happened next, who made the first move, or how they ended up atop those blankets wrapped around each other. All he could recall now was the warmth of Rick's body, the hardness of muscle, of needy flesh. He could remember the brush of bristles against his cheek, the grip of his hand around both him and Rick, bringing them both off as they muffled their cries, buried against each other's shoulder. He recalled the boneless lethargy that stole over them both, warmed inside and out as bruising kisses gentled into much needed sleep.

At the time it had seemed unreal, perhaps surreal. Looking back Daryl knew it was the most real he'd felt in his life, and every time that followed reminded him that he was still alive and real in this desolate, nightmare world where the dead walked.

Real, he thought, and he tightened his hold momentarily, tasting the saltiness of sweat as he pressed a kiss against soft skin at the base of Rick's throat, before drifting off to sleep, buried in Rick's arms.

END  
 


	2. Stereotypes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Locked away, cold and hungry, Daryl had plenty of time to think about the past years.

Locked away in the dark at Negan's base, cold and hungry, Daryl had plenty of time to think about the past years. He thought of his parents, his mom burning down the house in her sleep, his pa taking out his anger with the world in stripes and cigarette burns on Merle's back, and on his. He thought of Merle - loudmouthed, angry, obstinate Merle who'd forced a stranger to handcuff him to a roof to save the others. He thought of the stranger, Rick, a hardass local deputy, and him, a guy from the wrong side of the law.

They'd butted heads at first but surviving a zombie apocalypse meant breaking away from old stereotypes. It meant relying on a Sheriff's deputy to watch his back - or on a pizza delivery boy.

He sobbed quietly, recalling those first days after all hell broke loose, and the traumatized people slowly filling the small camp. So many of them were gone now and he could still see their faces, see their deaths. At the time he'd felt responsible for every single one of them, believing he'd failed them somehow. All paled into insignificance as he watched a barb-wire wrapped baseball bat come down hard on Glenn's head.

His fault.

His hot-head actions had killed a friend, had deprived another of the man she loved, robbed a baby of its father.

He felt broken inside, lost, wanting to bury himself alive rather than see the people he now called family turn away from him, or see the hard look in Rick's eyes as the clock wound back to those old stereotypes. So he huddled in the corner and waited for Negan to grow tired of him, to kill him too. He let them put him to work herding zombies, ate the dog food they placed before him, figuring he deserved nothing better. The days passed in a haze of hunger and exhaustion but the night's were infinitely worse, filled with splinters of happiness in a broken world until the dreams turned sour into nightmares. He'd bask in the beauty of Rick's smile, in the insistent touch that melted his bones bringing a moment of glory, of ecstasy, only to fall into an abyss as that smile grew cold and those blue eyes turned away from him. No longer brothers, lovers, reverting back to the Sheriff's deputy and the screw up redneck, white trash.

Glenn died because of him. How could he ever face Rick again?

Another day in hell, but a commotion had him looking up, meeting the single eye of an angry but scared boy. Instead of abhorrence he saw relief strip away the fear momentarily, and a shock ran through him. If an angry teenager could still look him in the face with something akin to joy, perhaps he owed it to himself to beg forgiveness from the others.

From Maggie, and from Rick.

END  
 


	3. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home wasn't a place; it was a person.

Daryl followed Jesus to Hilltop even after he found himself back on familiar roads and could have taken a turn towards Alexandria. He wanted to go 'home' but home wasn't a place to him; it was a person, and he was scared that person would turn his back on him after what had happened in the clearing. Perhaps he could have blamed it on sickness or on the pain from his injuries but the truth was he'd seen Negan brutally kill Abraham, watched him torture Rosita by trying to force her to look at Abraham's blood and brain matter caught in the barb wire covering that cursed baseball bat, and rage had taken over. He'd launched himself at Negan, his fist connecting, and Glenn had paid the price.

He didn't have a death wish, but he no longer cared about living either, moving through each day feeling numb inside, wishing he could turn back the clock and go home to his brother. Not the one sharing his DNA but the brother of his heart and soul, a bond forged in blood and battle, from clinging on to each other through years of cold nights, and through rain and bitter tears.

As the Hilltop gates opened a familiar woman stepped into view and Daryl's heart clenched in grief.

Maggie.

She moved to him slowly, stone-faced, and just when he expected to feel the sting of her palm across his face he felt her small arms wrap around him, her chest heaving as she sobbed into his shoulder.

"I don't blame you," she said, words shaking and muffled yet still so clear. "I don't blame you."

Perhaps only an hour later he heard her call out to Sasha and Enid, and when he stepped out from behind the shack he saw them standing there; Michonne and Tara, Sasha and Rosita, Enid and Carl... and Rick.

Daryl had faced down walkers and cannibals, psychopaths and those driven to the edge by grief or trauma, and yet he had never been so scared before, never so uncertain or so helpless as he waited for Rick's reaction. Shock, disbelief, but not hatred, not disgust. Daryl could no longer look him in the face, too undone by the joy and love he found shining back at him. He buried his head against Rick's shoulder, clutching at him even as Rick buried his hands in his hair to hold him closer still. He felt a slight movement as Rick acknowledged Jesus standing behind him and though he never wanted to let go, Daryl pulled back, accepting a hug from Tara and Michonne before turning his full attention back to Rick.

Daryl handed over the gun he'd come across while escaping from Negan's compound, seeing Rick's eyes widen in disbelief as he took the weight of the Colt Python in his hand.

As they turned and strode as one towards the main house for a confrontation with Gregory, Daryl glanced to his left at Rick. He was back where he belonged by Rick's side; his brother, his lover.

He was home.

END  
 


End file.
